Daily Devotions
The Cost of Forgiveness
Reading for November 12th: Acts 6-7
And as they were stoning Stephen... he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
Acts 7:59-60
Nothing is harder than forgiveness. The longer I live, the more I am convinced of this. We would rather do just about anything than to forgive.
There are different levels of forgiveness. All forgiveness is not the same. There are many degrees of difficulty. Sometimes forgiveness is easy because the crime was committed in ignorance or it was unintended. Sometimes there is minimal injury and so it is easy to move on and move past the offense because it cost us so little.
But then there are times when forgiveness is costly; costly because the debt is heavy (whether physically, emotionally, or both). It may not be seventy times seven, but it feels that way. The wounds are deep and painful. The pain is intensified when we know the attack against us is intentional.
But the Scripture is clear when it tells us, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another..." If the Scripture stopped there we could easily rationalize an unforgiving spirit in some cases. We could dismiss some of our enemies by saying it is simply too costly to forgive them.
But the Scripture doesn't stop there: "forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:32)
Lord God, remind us of the cost of our forgiveness that we might forgive one another in the same way.
